Saudi authorities executed Said bin Seif al-Zibya, a Saudi national convicted of killing a compatriot after an argument in Assir, in southern Saudi Arabia.

the US Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Ronald Rompilla, a Pennsylvania man on death row for a 1988 murder, ruling that his lawyers had failed to properly represent him.

Iran publicly hanged Ghobad Siah-Mansour, a serial bank robber who killed a policeman during a clash with security forces.

a man accused of murdering a taxi driver was hanged in Karoon Prison in the southern Iranian city of Ahwaz, according to the state-run news agency.

Shirin Ebadi, a leading Iranian human rights lawyer and Nobel Laureate, said that the hardline Islamic regime was still using medieval punishments on its people, including the stoning of women for adultery and the torture of dissidents.

Governor Rick Perry signed a law to give juries the option of sentencing murderers to life without parole - a measure some believe will lead to fewer executions in the No. 1 death penalty state.

Iran’s Supreme Court upheld the death sentence against Hojjat Zamani, a longtime political prisoner in Iran, making his execution imminent. Zamani, 29 years old, had been imprisoned in the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran since the year 2000 for being a member of the main Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI).

Hadi Safdari, an Iranian convicted of blackmailing his gay partners with videotapes of their sex acts, was hanged. Safdari was executed in Bojnourd in the eastern province of South Khorasan, the Qods newspaper said citing the local judiciary.

judiciary denied newspaper reports that a mother of two who strangled her lover had been sentenced to death by stoning, saying sentence had yet to be passed in the case.

Iraq said it would bring only 12 charges of crimes against humanity against Saddam Hussein although there were more than 500 possible cases against the ousted dictator.

an Iraqi judge on the court that will try Saddam Hussein said the former Iraqi dictator committed many crimes and likely will be sentenced to death.

only a week since announcing the intention of adhering to the Statute of Rome and thus also to the International Court of Justice, the provisional government of Iraq announced the withdrawal of such an initiative with a new decree, stated the Italian group No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ).